On the other hand, I know plenty of millionaires who never could have made a post like Jason's.
Why? Because of how they became millionaires. Either they inherited, joined a family business, climbed the corporate ladder, held onto or flipped real estate, grew a conventional business in the perfect climate, or just got plain lucky.
Better: Have you earned a million dollars through your own start-up > once?
It's still hard work though. However, you can probably combine the advice in that book and speed up the process of becoming a millionaire.
Once you get to that, I think you can live off a 3 percent interest. That's 30,000 dollars. I am pretty sure you can manage that if you live like a college student.
I'd spend part of the capital though, or invest on something with a better interest rate (like living off real-estate rent - my grandparents do that).
There were two groups that stood out in the book:
1. Professionals who did well and invested wisely. He noted that most professionals who do well, spend all of their income and often even more.
2. Business owners.
Both groups became millionaires through one means: business ownership - through stocks in case 1 and directly through case two.
I know several people who've done very well and it's because of their businesses. A junkyard owner, an owner of an electrician company, an owner of a used tire business are among those who have little or no post-high-school education. They all have far more in the bank than I do.
Note that all of these are all what the blog post calls "unsexy" businesses. They provide a product or service and charge for it.
The first million didn't happen for them in 3 years. But it did happen and for at least two of them (I lost touch with the junk yard owner) the money just keeps coming in.
(a) Happened to pick the stocks that outperformed the market, and (b) Invested during one of the strongest bull markets in history.
(Not to say who's right or wrong, just wanted to bring up an interesting counterpoint.)
The reason they couldn't have made a post like Jason's might well be for many reasons, maybe they...
- don't want to share their experience and knowledge widely and freely
- think they're too busy to do the above
- hadn't considered blogging it
- are not as eloquent in distilling and expressing it.
I think there would be interesting and valuable lessons to learn from any of the millionaire types you mention - even from those who've done it only once, and from those who've failed trying.